The Asian reporter., January 18, 2016, Page Page 8, Image 8

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Page 8 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
January 18, 2016
Former refugee thanks governor who welcomed him in 1975
By Melissa Santos
The News Tribune
ACOMA, Wash. — Vuong
Nguyen has spent the
past 40 years feeling
indebted to former Washington
governor Dan Evans.
This
year,
the
former
Vietnamese refugee finally found
a way to express his thanks: by
giving the former Republican
governor a bonsai tree landscape.
Nguyen was one of the first
Vietnamese refugees that Evans
welcomed to the state in 1975.
After Saigon fell that year, some
Americans
—
including
California governor Jerry Brown
and protesters at Fort Chaffee in
Arkansas — said they didn’t
want
Vietnamese
refugees
coming to their states.
Not Evans. He sent his staff to
California to tell hundreds of
Vietnamese hunkered down at
Camp Pendleton that they would
be welcome in Washington.
Among those refugees was
Nguyen, then 35 years old. After
settling in Washington, Nguyen
became a translator, and later an
auditor and consultant for the
state Department of Social and
Health Services.
Nguyen is also a skilled bonsai
artist and maintains about 40 of
T
the plants at his home in
Olympia. He said the 40th
anniversary of the Vietnamese
refugee resettlement program
got him thinking about a way to
thank the former governor.
“I told my wife, ‘We are very
lucky, because they opened up
their arms to help us,’” Nguyen,
75, said of coming to Washington
40 years ago.
Evans, however, wasn’t sure he
could care adequately for a bonsai
tree. Bonsai require careful
pruning and watering; maintain-
ing the miniature trees and land-
scapes is an art that the Japanese
perfected over centuries.
Versions of the art are also
practiced in China and Vietnam.
So the former governor, who is
90, suggested an alternative
plan: that he and Nguyen togeth-
er donate the long-lasting speci-
men to the Pacific Bonsai Muse-
um in Federal Way, where it can
grow and thrive for years to come.
The two men met with museum
officials to hand over the Penjing-
style bonsai in a ceremony.
“I want just to express my
gratitude to Dan, and I want my
children to thank people who help
them in their life,” Nguyen said.
“Without him, who knows where
I might have ended up?”
COMPASSION COMMENDED.
Vuong Nguyen, left, a former Vietnamese
refugee, found a way to express his thanks
to former Washington governor Dan Ev-
ans, right, by giving the former governor a
bonsai tree landscape. Nguyen was one of
the first Vietnamese refugees that Evans
welcomed to the state in 1975. (Photo
courtesy of the Pacific Bonsai Museum)
Evans, who also served in the
U.S. Senate, said he has been
thanked before by former
Vietnamese refugees who found
new lives in Washington state —
but never with a bonsai.
He said he viewed the Viet-
namese refugees in 1975 as no
different from other generations
of Americans who immigrated to
the U.S. in the past.
“That’s how we grew over the
centuries, was through immi-
grants,” Evans said. “Virtually
all of us except Native Americans
are immigrants.”
While current Washington
governor
Jay
Inslee
has
compared the plight of Syrian
refugees with the Vietnamese
that Evans welcomed 40 years
ago, Evans said he sees some
differences — mainly, the
modern threat of terrorism that
he said didn’t exist in 1975.
Evans said that while he
thinks U.S. states should
welcome Syrian refugees, he also
thinks more thorough screenings
are needed today than were used
when resettling the Vietnamese
40 years ago.
“But I think that can be done,
and when it is done we ought to
welcome the people in the same
way we did during the Viet-
namese crisis,” Evans said.
Nguyen said the bonsai he gave
Evans — in which plants grow
out of a landscape made of
volcanic rock — is a symbol of
longevity.
“That’s what we wish him: a
long and healthy life,” Nguyen
said.
Evans said he hopes the bonsai
will serve as a testament to the
partnership formed between
Washington state and its now-
thriving Vietnamese community.
“I can’t think of anything that
would be more gratifying, as far
as I’m concerned, than a living
gift of that nature, which will live
for centuries if it’s well taken care
of,” Evans said. “It has a
permanence — and because it
will be housed at the museum, it
is one that will be enjoyed for
many centuries to come.”
Governor Haley and speaker Ryan offer new GOP answer to Trump
By Erica Werner
The Associated Press
W
ASHINGTON — Two fresh faces
in the Republican Party —
speaker of the House of Repre-
sentatives Paul Ryan and South Carolina
governor Nikki Haley — are offering
messages of diversity and openness to
immigrants that could answer the GOP
establishment’s increasingly desperate
search for an antidote to the loud
pronouncements
of
presidential
frontrunner Donald Trump.
Delivering the GOP rebuttal to
President Barack Obama’s State of the
Union address, Haley, a daughter of
Indian immigrants, called for welcoming
legal immigrants to the country as long as
they’re properly vetted, and for resisting
the temptation “to follow the siren call of
the angriest voices.”
She acknowledged a day after the speech
that her comments were partly aimed at
Trump, telling NBC’s “Today Show”: “Mr.
Trump has definitely contributed to what I
think is just irresponsible talk.”
Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican
beginning his third month as speaker of
the house, has been pledging to offer a bold
agenda that will position the GOP as a
positive alternative to Obama and the
Democrats. He recently helped convene an
anti-poverty summit with some of the GOP
presidential candidates — Trump was
absent — where he pressed for “a safety
net that is designed to help get people out
of poverty.”
Such rhetoric from two young and
charismatic officeholders cheers establish-
ment Republicans who fear that the rise of
Trump and of Texas senator Ted Cruz —
with their frequent strong words on
immigrants in the country illegally —
could ruin the GOP for years, eliminating
show ‘em
that shine
dress bright / morning and night
trimet.org/beseen
REPUBLICAN RESPONSE. South Carolina
governor Nikki Haley speaks to a crowd at the Kemp
Forum in Columbia, South Carolina. Haley delivered
the GOP rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s State
of the Union address. (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)
any chance of winning the White House if
either is the nominee and turning off swing
voters, minorities, and women.
“Speaker Ryan and governor Haley
provide an important contrast, partic-
ularly with independent voters, to show
what the Republican Party is really about,
and it’s not about Donald Trump,” said
Brian Walsh, a Republican strategist.
“The key, though, is continuing to shine a
light on leaders like the two of them, and
that will depend in part on who we
nominate.”
Whether Haley or Ryan can do anything
to sideline Trump or Cruz remains to be
seen. That’s not their explicit goal, and
Haley, in particular, drew a backlash from
some conservatives for her State of the
Union rebuttal.
“Trump should deport Nikki Haley,”
conservative talk host Ann Coulter said
over Twitter.
And at the capitol, Haley’s comments on
immigration were being interpreted by
house conservatives including repre-
sentative Steve King of Iowa, a Cruz
supporter, as a call for unlimited legal
immigration into the country, something
they reject.
“I keep trying to remember when a
principled conservative has been given the
opportunity to provide that rebuttal,” King
told reporters, adding that Haley’s
comments would indicate she’s not one.
“They are looking for someone who fits
the profile that they want to be the face of
the Republican Party and that’s the
rationale,” King added later in an
interview, speaking of party leaders.
Asked if he would want Haley as the face of
the party, King said laughingly: “I think
she’s beautiful, so I’d be happy if she’s the
face of the party.”
Trump himself criticized Haley in an
interview on “Fox & Friends,” calling her
“very weak on illegal immigration.”
Yet for a GOP establishment that has
struggled with how to respond to Trump
and Cruz, Haley and Ryan stand as a
welcome rejoinder. Their messages are not
too different from what has been heard
from some of the mainstream presidential
candidates, notably former Florida gover-
nor Jeb Bush. But Bush and other estab-
lishment Republicans have struggled to
break through, while Ryan and Haley, as
prominent elected officials in their own
right, have their own platforms.
“What Paul Ryan is trying to do is put
forward a substantive, thoughtful policy
agenda for the country,” said moderate
representative Charlie Dent (R-Penn-
sylvania). “Every presidential candidate
should be doing the same thing.”
At the same time, party leaders are
mindful that Trump and Cruz are
channelling very real voter anger and a
backlash against Washington, which is at
least partly a creation of GOP leaders’
failure to make good on repeated promises
to effectively oppose Obama.
Conservatives warn that activists will
not respond well if GOP party leaders start
aligning themselves with Obama against
Trump, as some interpreted Haley’s
remarks.
“Trump’s response the next day will just
be ‘Well you heard President Obama and
the Republican leadership response echo
each other, they’re on the same team.’
That’s his thesis,” said conservative
representative Dave Brat of Virginia. “And
his thesis seems to be correct.”
Haley’s standing with conservatives was
not likely to benefit from the White House
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